Sounds Good, But Is It The Truth? (7)

 

O how I wish we would understand that the only way to know to Bible is to read the Bible, and that when we read the Bible that we must look for our Lord Jesus Christ and depend on Him to reveal Himself through His Word and the Holy Spirit. When I say, “Read the Bible,” I mean read it again and again and again – to live in it, to obey it, to ponder it, to speak of it with others.

 

I have been reading the Bible for 57 years, and I write this to say that I feel like I am just getting to know the Bible, it is fresher to me today than yesterday, and I am more excited to see Jesus in the Bible today than I have ever been before. And so with these introductory words I want to look at another often misquoted verse in the Bible, Matthew  7:1, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.”

 

Let’s begin with the immediate passage, remembering that the passage is in a section of Matthew chapters 5 – 7, the Sermon on the Mount:

 

“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

 

“Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” Matthew 7:1 – 6.

 

Let’s please consider the context of this passage, for while we live in a world of sound bites, that has not been the case for most of history; while we have attention spans less than goldfish, that has not been the case for most of history (though to be sure the masses have often been stirred and manipulated by the equivalent of sound bites).

 

Remembering that chapters and verses were not in the original manuscripts, consider Matthew Chapter 6:

 

“So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets…” Matthew 6:2.

 

“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners…” Matthew 6:5.

 

“And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the nations do…” Matthew 6:7.

 

“Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites…” Matthew 6:16.

 

Jesus gives us four examples of how not to think and act, and these examples are all of people. While one of these examples is of the nations in general (6:7), the other three examples are Jewish religious people, “in the synagogues.” Jesus is drawing the attention of His hearers to people they know, He is saying, “You know these people, don’t be like them.” He is not only drawing attention to actual people, He is naming them “hypocrites.” He is saying, “When you see people acting like this, judge this way, make a distinction between this behavior and godly behavior.”

 

Jesus’ warnings about hypocrites, and His teaching about godly giving, godly prayer, and godly fasting in Matthew Chapter 6 are a continuation of Chapter 5, and within Chapter 5 Jesus says, “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20).

 

Here Jesus draws His attention to two groups of religious people, (perhaps effectively one group), and says, “Look at these people, people you know, people you live with, people who teach you, do you see how they live? Do you see how “righteous” they are? Unless your righteousness exceeds their righteousness, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Then Jesus proceeds to demonstrate what that higher righteousness looks like and extends that teaching into Chapter 6.

 

Can we see how Jesus’s teaching leading up to “Do not judge so that you will not be judged” is laced with judgment? Can we see how Jesus is saying to His hearers, and to us, “Judge this thinking this way. Judge this teaching this way. Judge this living this way”?

 

Let’s keep in mind that Jesus isn’t just saying to judge and discern what is sinful and bad behavior and thinking, but He is also showing us how to judge righteous behavior, for example, “But I say to you, love your enemies…” (5:44); “But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (6:3).

 

Then we have the context in terms of what follows, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” Have you noticed 7:6? “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine…” In one moment Jesus says, “Do not judge,” and in the next moment He says, “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine…”

 

Now then, since we know Jesus isn’t referring to actual dogs or swine, to whom is He pointing? Of course He is pointing to people, just as He is pointing to people in 5:20, 6:2, 6:5, 6:7, and 6:16.

 

Then we have 7:15 - 20, “Beware of the false prophets…you will know them by their fruits.”

 

Not only is the statement, “Judge not that you not be judged,” preceded by Jesus teaching us to judge and discern between ungodly religious practice and thinking and teaching, and godly living as sons and daughters of our heavenly Father (Matthew 43 – 48), but it is followed by Jesus continuing to teach us to judge between godly and ungodly living – and the ungodly living He points to is in the context of religious thinking and practice. If anything, what follows Matthew 7:1 is starker than what precedes it, for we have “dogs and swine” in 7:6 and false prophets who are “ravenous wolves” in 7:15.

 

Also, we should not ignore the identification of people with practice – that is, Jesus is teaching us about those who are living as sons and daughters of God as contrasted with those who are hypocrites and dogs and swine and false prophets and ravenous wolves.

 

Consider Jesus’ words in John 8:44 (best read in context), “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father…”

 

This is hard for most of us to absorb in our therapeutic society and in a church that has surrendered to the therapeutic. We feel compelled to gloss over the words of Jesus, to spin them, to sugar coat them, to ignore them, to be embarrassed by them. Yet, if we rightly understand the Gospel we can all say that at one time “we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest [of mankind]” (Ephesians 2:1 – 3).

 

So again, what does the context of “Judge not that you not be judged” tell us about judging and discerning and differentiating between people and between thoughts and actions? What does it tell us about hypocritical religion with its self-righteousness as contrasted with true worship and righteousness? The context tells us that we ought to most certainly judge between these people and these things, Jesus is teaching this – He is drawing a stark and, to His listeners, a surprising contrast between the true and the false, He is teaching us to judge, to discern, to differentiate.

 

How then are we to understand “Do not judge so that you will not be judged”?

 

We’ll ponder this in our next post.